We just had an exciting day here: an outgoing winterover developed appendicitis, and apparently he was looking pretty bad as of Thursday night. We're not getting a boat visit here until next week, and then it would be another 5 days back up to Punta Arenas: not good enough. So our Station Manager called up Rothera, the British base about 200 miles from here, and asked for a Twin Otter to fly in. This is a brief window where a medevac flight is actually possible: the Twin Otters don't stay at Rothera in the winter, and our glacier doesn't stay snowed in enough to land planes in the summer. So our guy picked a relatively "good" week to get sick!
The upshot for us was that the combined SAR (Search and Rescue) teams spent Friday up on the glacier, getting it ready for the flight. We flagged antenna posts that are sticking up, we took out the flags going up the middle (generally there for a walking route), we put up big orange skiway markers and a windsock, and staged a Scott tent with some emergency gear in case the patient had to wait up there. We did all this in some really lousy weather, low visibility and moderate wind with blowing snow. So it was a bit surreal doing all this preparation in conditions that were totally wrong for flying, but the weather folks said there was a window coming in and darned if they weren't right! The wind was abating just as we finished up, and we could see the bases of the nearby mountains. Less than an hour after we got it together the Brits landed their cheerful orange Twin Otter. We zoomed back up with the patient (who prefers not to be named) on a sled behind a skidoo, loaded him up along with the outgoing Doc for company, shook hands all round, and poof they were gone. The glacier is sloped of course: they landed uphill, took off downhill. It was amazingly smooth and fast.
Here are some of the things that made the whole thing an exceptional experience: by Thursday morning we knew that our guy was doing better, still had to get out but not in immediate danger. We had a heap of work to do to get the skiway ready but not so much that we were stressed for time. The weather was bad enough to make the work more strenuous but not so bad that it was punishing (I won't promise that there wasn't any cussing on the tent team). We knew that it was an unusual event: it was only the 3d time the station has had planes land in the last 10 years. Everybody was working together well, proving the benefit of all the training and drills we've done. People knew where to find items like the skiway markers and the windsock - not items of everyday use. One of our guys had the bright idea of doing a dry run with a "dummy" patient in the sled: we discovered a couple of awkward corners and rearranged the weight distribution, so when we actually went up with the patient everything went smoothly. We got to see some of the international cooperation that still makes Antarctica special.
We're all used to thinking of Palmer as isolated, remote at the end of a long transportation chain that includes a 4-5 day boat trip. Getting our guy out approximately 27 hours after he first walked into the clinic with abdominal pain was absolutely amazing. Working together on tasks that we're not familiar with, achieving an end result that happens here less often than a blue moon, that was a big deal. We miss our two winterovers (patient and Doc), but they would've both been on the next boat out anyway. We have the word that the patient has had surgery and is recovering, so that's about the best outcome possible. We get a nice pat on the back from the NSF and now it's back to work: the boat that's coming next week has the combined science groups and cargo from 2 regular trips, since it had to go up to drydock to fix that wee main shaft leak. I am making many trips to and from the science labs here trying to make sure that all the computer equipment is as ready as I can possibly make it. That's how it goes! I expect that my next message will be all about science. We've been having a nice time here but it's time to get on with what it's all about.
I've got a few pictures up at www.murkworks.net/~sarah.
Best to all,
-Sarah